Author Martin Cothran, opens a piece he wrote for Intellectual Takeout, Charles Schultz’s Pushback Against Secularism, with these words:

We often think of the secularization of Christmas as a very recent thing. But its origins go back to the nineteenth century with the writing of “The Night Before Christmas,” and the Thomas Nast version of Santa Claus: the jolly, plump, white-bearded rendition we know today.

It’s not so much that a war has been raging against Christmas since the 19th Century. It is more that there are at least two different takes on what Christmas is supposed to be about. There is the Christian celebration of the birth of the long-promised Messiah, through whom God would redeem and reconcile a People to himself, and through whom “everything sad will come untrue.” And there is the more secular take, which seems to take delight in the Judeo-Christian virtues promised in the Messiah: “Peace on Earth” and “good-will to all men (and women)…”, but replaces Jesus as the focal-point of this holiday with a host of other figures: Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, just to name two.

In the same story cited above, Cothran ends with these words:

In many ways secularism has sidelined the real meaning of Christmas, and commercialism has covered it up. But truth has a way of intruding on our world of secular pretense and profit. At a time when it sometimes seems as if all is going dark, there are still places where there is a spotlight trained on the most important story of all.

I think Cothran has a point.

Now, I have no aversion to the festivities of the culture during this season of the year. In fact, I quite enjoy them. For the most part. But – and this is a big “but” – in recent years I have become less inclined to try to reconcile the two expressions of Christmas with one another. I am much more comfortable accepting the two divergent ways as co-existing. It seems to me that Christian attempts to synergize the celebration of the Christ-child with the merriment and cultural icons of this season are often times a source of the confusion of the meaning of Christmas.

Why not just recognize that, for Christians, there are two coinciding celebrations going on throughout December? Let’s recognize that these two celebrations have many aspects that overlap. Let’s promote the common ground values of joy, peace, hope, and love. Let’s strive for and contribute to “peace on earth, and goodwill toward mankind”, rather than warring against those who are (or, at least who may seem to be,) at war with Christmas.

But, for the Christian, we cannot stop there. For we know all of our striving will not lead to peace, but rather to more strife. That is because we have a sin problem, not just an absence of peace problem. And that is problem that we cannot save ourselves from. It will take God to intervene. So we need to pray. We need to pray that God will bring peace to this earth; and that God will work good-will among mankind. And… we do well to remember – and to celebrate – that God has intervened.

In Galatians 4.4-5, the Apostle Paul tells us:

⁴ But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

That is what Christmas is all about – for all who Believe. (John 3.16)